Leonard, Miles and Dawson-Hunte to narrate Mantel's audiobook

Lydia Leonard, Ben Miles and Aurora Dawson-Hunte, all of whom have featured in stage adaptations of Mantel’s works, will be voicing the audiobook of Hilary Mantel’s posthumous non-fiction collection, A Memoir of My Former Self: A Life in Writing (John Murray Press), publishing on 19th October 2023.

Leonard, Miles and Dawson-Hunte will be joined by actor Jane Wymark, who performed Mantel’s memoir Giving Up the Ghost (Fourth Estate/ W F Howes), as well as authors Sarah Waters and Anne Enright, Mantel’s literary agent Bill Hamilton, and Nicholas Pearson, her editor and publisher of nearly 20 years.

A Memoir of My Former Self is described as "a celebration of Mantel’s writing beyond her prolific career as one of the nation’s most treasured novelists". It features newspaper and journal contributions by the author, stories and reflections from her own life, as well as her Reith Lectures and a selection of her film reviews from her time as a the Spectator magazine film critic.

Laura Smith, acquisitions manager at W F Howes, who acquired the UK and Commonwealth unabridged audio rights from Florence Rees at A M Health, commented: “A year since Hilary sadly passed away, we are all still mourning the loss of one of this generation’s most iconic novelists. At W F Howes, we enjoyed a close relationship with her over the years, publishing her entire 14-title audiobook catalogue, which includes some of our all-time bestsellers.

"It was always apparent that Hilary’s passion for writing transcended far beyond her bestselling novels, so A Memoir of My Former Self is a perfect tribute to her life and a real celebration of her unique talent for writing in all kinds of diverse forms and styles. Given her huge popularity and legacy in the literary world, I’m not surprised by how many big names wanted to get behind this project and contribute to the audiobook."